Saka Light Cavalry

Tuesday, 28 April 2015

Solo Hail Caesar Campign

Lets face it more campaigns fall short of their intent and never pay back the effort that has been put into it. Well with that in mind and the main reason for doing a campaign firmly insight. So how is this going to be any better?

Glad you asked. The best figure campaign I remember was an ancients that whilst it lasted provided a number of interesting battles but did suffer from the ability of players getting a right stuffing from other players from the start.

With this in mind a multi-player version of this campaign will not have them actually able to make contact with each other until many battles have been fought with none-player countries (NPC). The main reason for generating a campaign is just to give us battles to fight. Losing a battle should not be major issue for the player, if they are fighting some distance from there own cities they can quickly replace lost troops and attack again.

The solo test version map above would be duplicated by the number of players taking part. The green area is the player controlled land, the yellow is minor nations land whilst the grey is area's that Barbarian hordes can come from. Any area that is travelled through becomes owned by the country that nation and acts as a route for supplies to be gained so reserve points and troops can be sent to units every five turns.

Random event rolls tend to result in no action but can give the chance of supplying units, alliances and even NPC'x forming alliances. The one you don't want is Barbarian attacks as they can come out of any of the grey area's.

The first even to happen was the southern NPC establishing a new city and thus becoming the best target for attack so I immediately sent a army towards that boarder.

The first battle ended with a victory for my Macedonian army which pushed back the defending army to the city to the north west. The following turn this army was to advance back to fight my army again but the main army has also moved adjacent so I will have to face two armies one after the other, A defeat to either army will force me back to the original boarder. Two victories will buy me some time till the second army arrives (you move two hexes per turn in your own country, one hex outside).

However the random event was that the north east NPC would ally with any NPC at war with me, so now I have armies from the north east approaching my boarder. They will remain allied until the war with Chios is over or another random event generates a change in status.

The situation prior to the two battles, Asia Minor is about to invade, heading for my nearest city, it's second army will position itself between it's cities awaiting developments. If I attack it's country it will move against the invading army. If my city falls it will also send troops to fight to retain it. The western NPC remains neutral, both armies positioned to defend against aggression or barbarian invasion.

Chios is most in danger as I can attack a second city though it can cover that city with the nearest army. NPC countries can not have more armies than cities, extra armies are gained through random events. If the number of cities fall below number of armies the excess armies are removed if they are defeated so it is possible for the excess armies to be retained by retaking cities without losing battles.

NPC armies always rebuild to their point value after battles. Players have to pay a percentage of unit values for units that are shaken or where routed. Armies are wise to have spare points travelling with the army to repair these units. If no points are available shaken units start with half cohesion loss and routed start the battle shaken, not a good way to start.

If this solo effort works hopefully we can put together a multi player campaign. Regardless this solo campaign should provide us with some interesting battles though most I think will be solo affairs.